seldear | ficathon reject fragment

“So you’re going?” He seemed resigned, but Sam didn’t quite trust her judgement. It wasn’t in his nature to be resigned - he’d been fighting all his life, and he wasn’t going to start now.

She lifted her chin. “Just for a holiday, sir.”

Time out. Time away. Something that neither of them mentioned or acknowledged. They would learn to cope without her, and she would learn to breathe again.

Maybe.

The ties between them kept them inextricably bound. She had nowhere to run to - except to them. And they were caught as well: trapped between their unwillingness to see her violated when they could have stopped it, and their own violation in the process.

“Where?”

“San Diego.”

“Mark?”

“Yes.” They didn’t always get on, and she knew that within a week, they’d have argued their way through everything from their father to her job, but the change would be welcome.

And the guys would have to learn to deal without her.

He glanced at her as the elevator moved between floors, the light and shadows of the rattling cage flickering over their heads. She saw the conflict in his eyes, battling its way between what he wanted and what he would allow himself. She held his gaze.

There was no resolution.

Slowly, like sleepers rousing at dawn, she felt the pull towards him, complex desire, need, and comfort, dangerous ground on which they stood.

The moment stretched out, gently elastic, and she forgot to breathe. Then the elevator stopped at an intermediate floor and the tension was gone.

They parted in the parking lot, casually, as though nothing had happened.

But she dreamed of him that night, in her bed, in her arms.

She woke with the taste of him on her lips.